


Love

by Missy



Category: West Side Story (1961)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, Post-Canon, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 10:56:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2848391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end, Maria finds happiness again. and Anita's right beside her along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [muffin_song](https://archiveofourown.org/users/muffin_song/gifts).



No one warned her about the yawning pain of grief. But no one also warned her that one day that grief would start to change, to develop into something more thoughtful. For the first few months it was easier to pretend not to have any opinions at all and go with the flow, looking tragic and wounded while everyone walked on eggshells around her. If remembering hurt, feeling anything was incrementally worse. She could drift numbly through her days at the shop, checking people out, feeling next to nothing as she passed out receipts and tucked hems.

But in the end the shell started to crack. And, in the end, Maria went back to school.

At first she told herself that’s because it’s what Tony would have wanted. That she’s too smart and pretty a girl to get stuck in the neighborhood, pushing carriages, only emerging from the kitchen for Sunday service, never knowing what the sun feels like in Paris or what the world looks like from Spain. But the more she learned, the more she realized that she didn’t want to be stuck in the same box; that she wanted to know about the world. She wouldn’t let anything limit her ever again, even the line between Shark and Jet, between white and Puerto Rican. The fault line between the classes meant even less to her when she signed up for night classes at the local college. She’d take design, of course, but then there was history, and of course languages. She wanted to learn French on top of Spanish and English, and she was determined to gain that knowledge.

It was a lot to take in. People thought she was trying to overstep her bounds, to escape all of them while she still could. Let them think that – Maria was doing it because she wanted to find out what lay on the other side of the Bridge; how people lived in Connecticut and Manhattan, all of those fancy places with big, fancy names. 

*** 

Anita watched her do her homework with an arched eyebrow, saying absolutely nothing while the girl fiddled about with her languages and figures. “You think you’re so much better than me!” she says one day, when she can’t take her studious silences anymore and desperately needs to _talk_ to somebody. “Trying to replace Tony with your fancy books and your silly airs! You’re always gonna be a little girl from the wrong side of the tracks!”

Her words unlock something deep inside of Maria. She grabbed Anita by her arms and screamed out her pain, the agony of her losses throttling through her. Then Anita’s holding her. And suddenly, somehow, they’re both weeping.

But even as she heaved her sadness up through her parched throat, deep within, a spark of joy started. If they could cry together, they could find healing – if they could heal, they’d be able to make it. Survival was the key to their future. Survival would get them out of this dress shop and somewhere safe and warm. And Maria grew even more determined to drag them both up into the light.

*** 

Maria gets an A. 

A big, bright, shiny A. she almost can’t believe it.

Anita tells her they should hang it on the refrigerator and Maria patiently rolls her eyes and sighs that if Anita’s going to act that way…but then they break 

It’s become easier to smile now, to laugh. Things are going so well; the shop is thriving, and they’ve been able to save money for Maria’s classes, enough to get them both to going in school.

But Anita complains, as she always must at the end of the day, her feet propped up and a cola in her hand. Maria starts to think she always will – and she’s fine with that. Even if she has to listen to Missus so-and-so, one of the gringos who buys their dresses and then complains about the quality. She’s looking for a Spanish tutor for her son, and Anita dandles the promise of acceptance before her like a shiny jewel. “They talk about your English til they need someone who knows the madre tongue!” she snorts. Then she launches into her impression of the woman, all swagger and boast, shoulders shifting and lashes fluttering.

Maria starts to smile. Soon laughter emerges from her heart. Then she’ll giggle again, great rolling gulps of incredulous laughter that fill her with joy. Life goes on, in its own, strange, beautiful way.

*** 

Anita has a plan. 

She’s going to start hanging around juke joints and find a fella. He probably won’t be as wonderful as Bernardo, but he’ll be warm and smart. Which is, at this point, more than enough for her to survive on. 

Maria sighs and shakes her head. Anita’s too good for that kind of life, she tells her so honestly and truly. But Anita shrugs. 

“I want to have fun before I’m cold in the ground. And you have fun too, si?”

Fun’s become more of a plausible notion over the past few months. Summer’s quietly roasting the city block, and Maria and Anita will do anything to get away from the shop for awhile. They go together to street festivals and play games, winning candy necklaces and plastic toys. They dance under the bright moonlight and watch fireworks explode over the crowded city street. 

Maria still sees Tony’s face in the sunlight, in the fireworks booming overhead, but it doesn’t bring on the keen, terrible pain it once did. Instead it leaves in her soul a certain sense of warmth, as if she’d had a pleasant dream while watching the sky burst into flame.

*** 

The scholarship isn’t much, but it’ll support her during her first semester.

The girls at the shop cry. Anita throws a tantrum, but comes around. She insists on sewing all of Maria’s clothing herself.

And she sees the girl off to the bus stop, suitcases in her hand. What she thought of this little Puerto Rican girl going off to the even-bigger-than-New-York city, running away to become a grown-up.

But Anita tells Maria what she already knows. “I love you, girl,” Anita says, almost squeezing the air from Maria’s lungs. 

“Si, and you, always, always,” Maria says back, kissing Anita’s be-rouged cheeks, tasting briefly the bite of powder and the salt of tears,.

She turns from the girl now, toward the future, the shiny machine that bears her off to practical work and education. 

Maria images Tony slipping his fingers into her open palm and a smile comes, at last, a smile comes. 

She takes a deep breath and then the first step.


End file.
